The owners and operators of business or residential properties consisting of individual units, such as apartment complexes, are faced with the problem of maintaining control over their properties. The owner of a property will normally have an interest in controlling the services and activities at a particular unit. Examples of this would include supplying utilities or controlling access to the unit. This type of control is desirable to limit the liability of the property owner for services provided at the unit, to reliably control tenant access to a rental unit, and to reliably control activities at the unit.
Present methods for providing property owners control over their property are not sufficiently effective. In order to discontinue most utilities to a unit the property owner is required to work through a utility provider which is time consuming and costly. The property owner may control access to the unit by changing locks on the doors to the unit, but this also entails considerable cost and effort. Finally, many services or products provided at a rental unit may only be controlled by on-site monitoring. However, on-site monitoring is costly and inefficient. Thus, a need has arisen for a system that allows a property owner or operator to remotely control services, access, products and activities at a designated property.